There’s nothing in the memo about hiding a log of a phone call. It’s something the blogger made up (it doesn’t even make sense, why would a call from Geitner to Summers generate a log so detailed that it would reveal Geitner telling Summers some phone numbers, and if they were trying to avoid generating a record, why would they exchange a memo?)
And you’re dodging the question. What specifically in the memo do you feel was revealed? What should be illegal? What didn’t we know before that we do now?
But that’s not really what the Financial Services Agreement did. You can see it here:
It pretty much says that countries can’t discriminate against signatories…that Australia can’t tax US services greater than their own services, or ban people from buying US investments if they’re otherwise identical to Australian investments or whatever. But it specifically says that can still regulate the industry to protect investors and assure the stability of their financial system.
The image in the linked article doesn’t actually show enough of Corzine’s name to determine if it’s misspelled in the memo.
The quotes in the article, OTOH, are likely to have been transcribed manually. And there you can see Corzine’s name spelled with an “h.” It’s my belief that the misspell was the responsibility of whoever typed the article.
Unless you have a more complete image of the actual memo.
Again, there was no conspiracy. Summers and Geitner publicly advocated for the legislative changes. There’s no indication in the memo of anything being kept secret. And there’s no indication that the changes were meant to “make the world better for bankers and nobody else”. This is all stuff the blogger made up.
Indeed, the end of the memo seems to indicate the bankers needed some convincing regarding the proposed changes.
So what in the memo, specifically, do you think is outrageous?
So there is this cabal of big shots, and they pull off a global heist worthy of Lex Luthor, one which brings down whole nations, leaves others unscathed, yet all are within its grasp save Brazil, because they were all conned into a sort of legally-binding, limited one world government, an oligarchy in the big shots’ pockets. And it is kind of like Genesis, kind of like chess, and Obama is about to take a bite out of the wrong apple, which will generate either a dove or a hawk, over unemployment/inflation?
People outside of the financial industry and even most inside of it didn’t really understand what failing to regulate derivatives would mean. First there was the issue of leverage. In normal fractional reserve banking you need to have reserve ratios of at least 10% or so. IOW you keep 10% of the assets you claim as ready reserves and only loan out at most the other 90%. I don’t remember what if any restrictions were placed on the derivatives industry but I don’t think it was anywhere near that.
That’s fine as long as the market for such things is expanding but when it contracts, deleveraging is more of a bitch than ever. When you’re leveraged at 100 to 1 instead of 10 to 1 say and the house of cards comes tumbling down, you are well and truly boned as we saw in 2008.
The other issue is what I call a cascade effect that amplifies the leverage issue. For example, let’s say you sell a CDS on Portugal’s debt for a nominal value of $1M with annual premium payment of 5% or $50k. That $50k is now a payment stream which can be turned around and sold as another type of derivative such as TRS (total return swap) maybe - not sure about that one. The point is that these derivatives can ‘feed’ on themselves in a sense and amplify the leverage issue that was already bad to begin with.
You don’t even know what the Financial Services amendments to GATT say. You’ve no idea what effect they have or don’t have or what their purpose is. You have no idea what they say on the subject of “derivatives” and investment banks.
All of these beautifally ‘intelligent’ members and they keep debating…and debating…and debating…reality.
From Der Tris (or whomever) to Polycarp.
Ha!
The Elites of the World care not about the Straight Dope Message Board.
Nor the Governments of the World. Nor the conclusions of which they have arrived.
So…does the whole dang Board boil down to ‘Recreational Outrage’?
Just fun!
Yes.
Hang on boy and girls.
To one another.
Because beyond that there is nothing.
Proof of your ‘Intellect’ mattering in this world? Changing anything?
Let us know.
Cuz if any one person or more than one person on this Message Board has EVER made a difference in the world, well…it would be good to know.
The Conservatives hate****the Liberals and vice versa.
This Message Board gives them the chance to spout.
ALL of them on both sides the opportunity to SPOUT.
And having done that for 10,000 or 20,000 or 30,000 Posts…let’s have EVIDENCE of what that has EVER changed.
Recreational Outrage in advance of one’s own agenda is simply, common.
HELLO, ‘Conservatives’ and ‘Liberals’…you are each and severally responsible for the fractions in our Society.
Hope your individual AGENDAS are WORTH the Wars this World has fought.
lurking guest, you are free to open your own thread in The BBQ Pit to express your own recreational outrage; you are free to open a new thread in Great Debates to argue whether there is a point to the discussions you find here; you may open a thread in IMHO to ask how many share your opinions.
What you may not do is wander into a thread and simply declare that the thread, itself is pointless and the participants are foolish to post to it.
That is threadshitting and you will not do it again.
Not sure it’s worth dredging this up after more than a week, but the NYT doesn’t seem to have a very high opinion of Summers. In a Sept 5th opinion piece it gives a partial catalog of his failings with comments like
There’s been an astonishing amount of deliberately missing the point in this thread.
Many USA voters were unaware of what was happening at the time, and too many voters now, this is unknown history. The overall point, that globalized finance did this damage, it didn’t have to happen, and Obama’s been advised by the same jackasses who set the world up to fall down hard, is very provocative.